Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

[Sky]

Sky, I think his point was the opposite.  He hates stumbling upon a dungeon while exploring, sneaking in, and discovering he out leveled the 3 demons ages ago and everything in the dungeon is trivial.

I want lower level mobs that are smarter. A lvl 2 gnoll shouldn't ever try to attack me when I'm a level 20 badass. It wouldn't just wander around hoping that I don't see it. It would run for the hills.

This. The demons would see me, one pushes the other into my way and the other two bolt for the depths of the dungeon.

But, you know. AI. I've given up bitching about it, apparently good AI is a lost cause.

[Job601]

You make my head hurt.

Level-scaling sucks. You mean you don't find it rewarding to stumble across that awesome dungeon entrance (I'm an explorer type), sneak in carefully and see three demons that can smear the wall with your entrails, and hope you can outrun them before they give up the chase? Because to me, that's a solid gaming experience.

Maybe your head hurts because you seem to think i said the opposite of what I did say.  I don't think we disagree at all.  In fact, I think that the awesome dungeon experience you're describing is why a solution that does away with levels loses something that is fundamental and fun about computer rpgs.  

What I don't like, as somebody else says above, is getting so powerful that big chunks of the game aren't fun for me anymore.  Level scaling done right can help to mitigate that.

[Kail]

I don't mind roflstomping some shit -- if I'm wandering around in a field and I get eaten by a level-scaled wolf at level 20, that's no fun.  What I hate is discovering an awesome dungeon for the first time and not really getting to enjoy it because I there's no drama or tension when everything dies with one click.

So go to a different dungeon, then.  That's the whole point of a levelling sytem: whatever level you are, some of the content will be tough, some will be easy, and you can take whatever you feel like doing.  If you want a quick stomp, you go to a lower level dungeon.  If you want a tense challenge, you go to a higher level dungeon.  If you want a straightforward but fair fight, you go to a dungeon your own level.  When you scale the dungeon with the player's level, you lose that choice.  EVERY fight becomes the same, for the entire game, always.  What's the point of having a level system at all, then?  What purpose does it serve?  Why design one system that doubles the damage you deal every time you eat ten banannas if you then immediately have to design another system that doubles the enemy hitpoints to counter it?

How about not using levels.

You don't have to get rid of levels, you can just tone them down a bit.  The problem is the philosophy that a level 99 character can singlehandedly murder a dragon, while at level 1 he was getting savaged by mice and gumdrops.  You can do a reasonably realistic game with levels where a skilled swordsman can take out a novice, but still allow for the fact that no amount of martial skill will let him punch a bear to death.

[Ingmar]

I think it's important for the main central storyline stuff at least to level scale, personally. I don't think I'd enjoy a D&D game where the guy at the end was either trivial or unwinnably hard, not sure why I should feel any different in a CRPG setting. Other than that I think a 'looser' sort of scaling is more ideal, where you know that certain areas will be too hard for you at first but you never have to waste a lot of time fighting trivial bullshit. If something's that trivial just skip it with a cutscene of my dude going nova or something and let me move on.

[KallDrexx]

So go to a different dungeon, then.  That's the whole point of a levelling sytem: whatever level you are, some of the content will be tough, some will be easy, and you can take whatever you feel like doing.  If you want a quick stomp, you go to a lower level dungeon.  If you want a tense challenge, you go to a higher level dungeon.  If you want a straightforward but fair fight, you go to a dungeon your own level.  When you scale the dungeon with the player's level, you lose that choice.  EVERY fight becomes the same, for the entire game, always.  What's the point of having a level system at all, then?  What purpose does it serve?  Why design one system that doubles the damage you deal every time you eat ten banannas if you then immediately have to design another system that doubles the enemy hitpoints to counter it?

That's not acceptable for a game that is supposed to embrace exploration gameplay.  If you are just out exploring, there is no way to know if the dungeon you randomly found is lower level or higher level than you.  If it's too low level, "find another dungeon" isn't acceptable, because you now feel like you wasted your time exploring to find a worthless dungeon and as far as you know, the next one you find will be the same.

The game should reward you for exploring, not punish you because you didn't explore at the exact same points the game developers thought you would.

[Kail]

So go to a different dungeon, then.

That's not acceptable for a game that is supposed to embrace exploration gameplay.  If you are just out exploring, there is no way to know if the dungeon you randomly found is lower level or higher level than you.  If it's too low level, "find another dungeon" isn't acceptable, because you now feel like you wasted your time exploring to find a worthless dungeon and as far as you know, the next one you find will be the same.

The game should reward you for exploring, not punish you because you didn't explore at the exact same points the game developers thought you would.

Exploring != Random Encounters.  The ruins guarding a magical artifact of great power should be difficult.  Clearing the mice out of Grandma's Cellar should not require me to bring siege weapons and a party of veteran warriors.  There are ways you can (hopefully) show players how difficult an area is before they step through the door, without spoiling the entire experience for them.

[Sky]

As someone who is primarily into exploration, I've never said "Oh, this sucks. I missed this cheese dungeon early on and now I just wade through it easily." I just wade through it quickly, see if there were any story bits in there, and get back to exploring. Die, you runty little bastards, die.

The reward is from interesting story bits that might be in the dungeon, not fighting tougher snotlings.

As I said, I like the way it's done in Risen, but maybe the questing and strategically placed bottlenecks keep you focused on properly-leveled areas. In Fallout-NV, I'm more disappointed by the amount of bland stuff not worth exploring because they didn't take time to itemize or add lore elements (a failing with Bethesda, but I'm surprised to see Obsidian do the same thing). And way more disappointing than out-leveled mobs is them acting like they aren't. That's really the only way you can keep content fun and believable imo.

[Ironwood]

You can't really compare the two;  you can't blow heads off in Oblivion.  That makes finding enemies in Fallout so much fun, no matter the level.

[KallDrexx]

Exploring != Random Encounters.  The ruins guarding a magical artifact of great power should be difficult.  Clearing the mice out of Grandma's Cellar should not require me to bring siege weapons and a party of veteran warriors.  There are ways you can (hopefully) show players how difficult an area is before they step through the door, without spoiling the entire experience for them.

I think your problem is you are treating below level and above level differently, when to explorers they are fundamentally different.  

Encounters that are above your level aren't an issue.  You may try and see that you are getting your ass handed to you, mark it down on the map and try and figure out a way you can beat it.  You then give yourself a goal to get yourself powerful enough to be able to tackle the encounter, and it helps with immersion.

Encounters that are below your level that you randomly came across suck, because there's no way to make it fun without fundamentally gimping yourself or restarting.  It doesn't make the player create a goal and it's just a waste when you are trying to explore.  

[Sky]

You can't really compare the two;  you can't blow heads off in Oblivion.  That makes finding enemies in Fallout so much fun, no matter the level.

True. Though the reason I was thinking along those lines was running into an area with those lizardy guys in F:NV last night. I mostly just let Boone and ED-E (buffed weapons) deal with them. At this point, I'm letting them deal with pretty much everything while I just explore. My weapon quality isn't great and I don't have repair kits or extra weapons to fix mine.

[Kitsune]

The problem with not scaling with level for Oblivion is that it had no way to gauge what's in any given hole.  If you could look at a cave entrance and see blood and glowing runes all over it and think, "Oh hey, there are badass demons in there, I should steer clear." it'd be nice and straightforward.  But no, you could walk into a dungeon and find either a bunch of crippled children having a birthday party, or Satan, and it always looked identical from the outside, leading to lots of "ohfuckohfuckohfuck" moments and "yawn" moments, with precious few balanced challenge fun moments.

A claim could be made that not every monster out there clearly identifies its lair, and that's fair, but at least in that case you should be able to talk to the nearby residents for things like, "Be on the watch around Pemberton Cavern, sir, there's bandits that live there."  There should be some method for a player to find out what beasties live where short of actually jumping into their nest.

[Bunk]

I'm going to start sounding like Oscuro's fanboi, but OOO adresses a lot of thesee complaints. Multiple new lairs added to the landscape, along with NPC dialog that actually tells you whats in them. He also tended to put clues outside the lairs to give you an idea what to expect. Goblin caves for example often have a guard or two outside the cave. They are usually killed by passing patrols, but the corpses make it pretty obvious what is inside.

As to AI - the mod community has shown that there is an awful lot of room to improve things. Popular Oblivion mod adjusts the animals to actually scan you when you get within detection range. Looks at your personality and willpower stats, whether you have a weapon in hand, etc, and dictates the animal behaviour on that. No more anoyance of wolves harassing a 20th level warrior - they run like shit when they see you.

[Sheepherder]

I don't mind roflstomping some shit -- if I'm wandering around in a field and I get eaten by a level-scaled wolf at level 20, that's no fun.

Rats should never scale

Wolves and rats aren't scaled in Oblivion.

Kitsune, that is a good chunk of the reason why I like Morrowind: almost all of the really bad places to be had associated lore.

[cironian]

Wolves and rats aren't scaled in Oblivion.

Well, that's only half the truth. While the rats themselves are fixed in level, the spawn itself is level-dependent, so at level 1 you get rats, at level 5 you get wolves and at level 10 you get big bears. Although it's slightly more distinct visually, it's really the same thing gameplay-wise as spawning human enemies with different gear and stats.

[Sky]

A claim could be made that not every monster out there clearly identifies its lair, and that's fair, but at least in that case you should be able to talk to the nearby residents for things like, "Be on the watch around Pemberton Cavern, sir, there's bandits that live there."  There should be some method for a player to find out what beasties live where short of actually jumping into their nest.

The bethesda engine click to zone defeats something the gothic/risen engine seamless engine allows: looking inside a cave/dungeon entrance to see what's lurking in there.

Even so, Risen was pretty good about the locals giving rumors to the tougher dungeony areas.

[lamaros]

The fundamental problem with scaling, and this is ignoring all the other bad design whinges about here (such as lairs not indicating their difficulty through lore or description - this is just bad game design) is that it takes the idea of 'play the game as you like' out of exploring.

I've said this again and again, but the best thing about the first few chapters of BG2 was the ability to beat a few 'oh shit' fights and then roflstomp shit afterwards. Bad level scaling takes away the ability of the person playing the game to choose their fights in this way. Those who like to hurt their brain with things really hard and then take it easy get told 'no, everything is as hard as the difficulty level, all the time, no matter the choices you make'. Which defeats the idea of 'choice' completely.

[Ingmar]

BG2 did scale, though. Try running, say, the d'Amise Keep section a few times at different levels and you will see the mix of monsters you fight vary pretty widely. The big set piece encounters like dragons and such didn't scale but the makeup of 'trash' monsters most certainly did. Outside of spellcasters, though, the power curve of a 2nd edition D&D character is not all that extreme however so it probably wasn't a very evident change for most people. It isn't Oblivion-style scaling, but there is scaling nonetheless, and it is a reasonably integral part of making Chapter 2 not turn into a boring slog by the end of it.

[lamaros]

We've been over this before too, and I knew someone was going to mention it. The thing with BG2 was that you could beat up a dragon and lich or two and out pace the other crap with equipment.

The scaling itself was thus able to be avoided. This would have been impossible if all the fights were scaled as you'd never have been able to get at that really good equipment early.

The better example is BaK. But not enough have played it to se it as an example. I would absolutly use some of it's world and encounter design if I ever made a RPG though. The best RPGs don't just let players play a type of character, but also give you the ability to play the world, and its encounters, in fundamentally different ways. Not just differences in sequence, but in difficulty and content too.

[Sheepherder]

Well, that's only half the truth. While the rats themselves are fixed in level, the spawn itself is level-dependent, so at level 1 you get rats, at level 5 you get wolves and at level 10 you get big bears. Although it's slightly more distinct visually, it's really the same thing gameplay-wise as spawning human enemies with different gear and stats.

Well, since you want to get technical.

[WindupAtheist]

Man you save your game, then poke your face into the dungeon. If there's a dragon you run like hell, if it's kobolds you roflstomp and move on. It's like some of these babies have never played an RPG before.

Oh no I'm obsoleting 'huge swathes' of precious content!

What did you do to get such a high level, anyway? How much content is there in this game, that you can get to high level and still have "huge swathes" of lowbie shit lying around unseen?

Anyway, what I want is more/better procedurally generated content. Then we can have so much of it that ever seeing it all is out of the question anyway. Procedurally generate a huge world, then have your developers go in and polish it a bit, throw in some hand-crafted points of interest. Then turn me loose.

[Paelos]

You know what's great if you outlevel huge swathes of content? It gives you something to do that's new when you reroll. If you go back and stomp it for completionist since at uber level, then complain wah it's too easy now, you're being a dick.

[tgr]

Anyway, what I want is more/better procedurally generated content. Then we can have so much of it that ever seeing it all is out of the question anyway. Procedurally generate a huge world, then have your developers go in and polish it a bit, throw in some hand-crafted points of interest. Then turn me loose.

I would like to see this in more than just RPGs. I've been waiting for someone to do something like this in driving games as well. I can just imagine how awesome it would be to have a driving game with RBR's physics, combined with either a real world replica (I wonder how much google would take for a dump of their data, including roads), or just a huge procedurally generated world.

[Malakili]

PC Gamer gave this a 94.  Yes, I still get a hard copy of that magazine, I like real paper, call me a luddite.   In any event, the review left me thinking it was far worse than that though.  

My big question is basically this:  I couldn't get through Dragon Age one, I crapped out sometime in the middle of the dwarf quest line because it got too damn tedious/repetitive for me.   I'd be happy to play a good single player RPG again, but if I didn't like DA, is DA different/better enough to capture my attention?

[Rendakor]

Wrong thread? Else, how is someone reviewing a game that comes out in November?

[Paelos]

Wrong thread? Else, how is someone reviewing a game that comes out in November?

He's wandered into the wrong place.

[LK]

If you want a challenge, that's what the difficulty slider is for. Bethesda can't be bothered to balance all its content around all possible scenarios. They give the player that power.

[eldaec]

Sort of like DMing a campaign in which you are also the only player.
 

[Slyfeind]

Another option is to gate the content, so that all the easy crap is at the start, while all the hard crap is toward the end. It's artificial, but so is level-scaling, and at least gating content doesn't feel as heavy-handed.

[NowhereMan]

Gating content would be a pretty new aspect to Bethesda RPGs and really outside of maybe having a newbie area (which you really don't need in a single player game) not one I'd particularly welcome. The whole idea of these games is to be immersed in a world you can tromp around, setting up gates and barriers all over the place would not contribute to this. Also put me down in the 'get crappy mob levelling out of my game'. It's not horrible in the main quest provided it's not a hard tie to the character's level (i.e. everything just levels at the same rate you do) since it means the main quest doesn't become one of those easy roflstomp encounters and hopefully lets you continue with it whenever you want so you can do a speed run without bothering with side quests (I guess if you don't really like these sort of games?). Making every encounter the same level of challenge leads to far fewer epic moments.

Although on the subject of epic moments I'm really hoping they devote a bit more time to designing some of the world properly. Putting actual giant ass fortresses in for Blades (if they're in) to use or at least making settlements look the way they're meant to. Seeing as I don't think Skyrim is meant to have any giant sprawling metropolises this is probably actually far more possible than it was with Oblivion.

[Sky]

Another option is to gate the content, so that all the easy crap is at the start, while all the hard crap is toward the end. It's artificial, but so is level-scaling, and at least gating content doesn't feel as heavy-handed.

Risen had that to some degree. There was plenty of places you didn't want to stick your nose, but a lot of things were either soft-gated by a mob in a bottleneck (if you could beat him, you could handle most of what followed) or hard-gated by the story (lizardman invasion). Worked well and didn't seem artificial at all.

[Paelos]

I don't think they need mob leveling either. Mob conning works just fine. Just don't make it a "skill" where I can't figure out a mob's strength until I hit 100 in scouting or something. 

[LK]

There are multiple, unaddressable base issues with the setup of Elder Scrolls games. Being able to scout by popping your head into a dungeon, figuring out the difficulty level (or dying), and then reloading your game is one of them.

Is there a way to reward a player for playing smartly instead of gaming the mechanics? I would think the first step would be to remove the ability to save anywhere... oh shit, the SCREAMS. LIKE THE TORTURED SOULS OF HELL.

[ajax34i]

There are multiple, unaddressable base issues with the setup of Elder Scrolls games. Being able to scout by popping your head into a dungeon, figuring out the difficulty level (or dying), and then reloading your game is one of them.

That's not an Elder Scrolls -only issue; saving games is pretty much a staple of single player RPG's, and the screaming is because if it's removed we also have no way to get out of a bug or glitch with the game (and they all have them).

So, anyway, problems with Elder Scrolls games only, that you don't normally see in other single player RPG's?

My list:

- Their lore is becoming confused - dragons?  Since when?
- Tamriel has several provinces all with their own cultures and several extinct races, but trying to explore archeological / historical sites is an exercise in combat, rather than puzzle-solving and exploration. 
- The games lack in the story and plot departments.  Huge world, but it's really all the same (and seems randomly generated by a computer), very few interesting plot lines.  "Content" in an RPG is the plot, not the number of monsters to kill.
- Some of their game mechanics suck (melee combat in TES 3 and 4 for example), as mentioned before (I don't have ideas about how to fix or improve, though).

Not sure which of these they'll address in Skyrim, and I guess I'll wait and see what they do.

[Ingmar]

I think there were dragons or something like that in one of the earlier ones, Daggerfall maybe?

[cironian]

They were considered extinct in Tamriel (killed by Cliff Racers ) and greatly reduced in Akavir, but still believed to be around over there. But they've been part of the TES back story for a while.